


There are universes in our bodies

by longtime_lurker, musguita



Category: The Social Network
Genre: 5 Times, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bathroom Sex, Blow Jobs, Couch Sex, Dirty Talk, Elevator Sex, Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Enemies, Hand Jobs, Hate Sex, Hotel Sex, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Semi-Public Sex, Sickfic, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 13:10:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3651567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longtime_lurker/pseuds/longtime_lurker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/musguita/pseuds/musguita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Mark wants, lusts, <i>needs</i> like he never has before in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [There are universes in our bodies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/458894) by [musguita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musguita/pseuds/musguita). 



> > Spanish-language original by [musguita](http://archiveofourown.org/users/musguita/pseuds/musguita), from a prompt at [laredsocial](http://laredsocial.livejournal.com/), beta-read by [earwen_neruda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earwen_neruda), first [posted to LiveJournal](http://thatsdramatic.livejournal.com/29662.html) in August 2011, first [translated to English](http://longtime-lurker.livejournal.com/35299.html) in September 2011.

**1.**

It’s Eduardo’s lawyers’ fault, really.

And, okay, maybe Mark shouldn’t eavesdrop on other people’s conversations - but if you’re going to talk about him in the men’s restroom while Mark is in there, then it’s just logical that Mark can’t avoid listening.

What’s really unexpected is Mark’s subsequent thought process leading him to the conclusion that right now he’s on the verge of a heart attack. Not because of Facebook, or Sean and his fucking drug scandals, or the nightmares he gets about an attack that takes Facebook offline for long enough that it loses all its users. Nor even that time when Facebook was losing money and Mark drank too much Red Bull.

No. It’s because of _Eduardo_.

It’s an idea that absorbs his full attention for as long as anything or anyone ever does. Surely there’s something tragic about it that Mark hadn’t perceived at the time – in the right hands, it could be made into a movie that would become a classic.

Eduardo’s lawyers are talking about Eduardo and Mark. About the “breakup”. It takes Mark a few days to realize that they were referring to the day of the million-member party. But because Mark frequently gets bored and his attention depends on what’s being said and who’s saying it – frankly, the tension between Sy and Gretchen was more entertaining at the beginning – he starts thinking about it. If it was by mutual agreement, or if Mark just let Eduardo sign the papers because it was what _he_ wanted and it was easier to do it behind Eduardo’s back than tell him to his face. Or if Eduardo had gotten there first - if he’d realized that they'd already reached that point. If that was Eduardo _breaking up_ with him, the day he froze the account.

Mark doesn’t let himself dig any deeper than that, because it’s too weird to think about their relationship in the way that other people apparently saw it. Although that only raises more questions that keep him up at night. Questions like whether Mark was the only one who didn’t get it - whether to Eduardo it was a breakup and not just a _You betrayed me, asshole, and I’m gonna destroy everything that you love starting with this computer_ \- whether Mark was in a relationship without knowing it, whether he was the _only_ one who didn’t know it. All of which leads him to ask, before he has time to regret asking:

“Did Eduardo and I have a relationship?”

“…Of course. You were friends.” It’s possible that Dustin had been sleeping when Mark called.

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, do you think that people thought that there was something more?”

Mark doesn’t know how much he didn’t want to have this conversation until he’s having it.

“Oh. You mean…?” Dustin doesn’t finish the question. “Oh, Mark.”

_Oh Mark *what*,_ he thinks, _and don’t give me that shit._

“Whatever.”

Mark hangs up the phone and ignores Dustin’s next three calls and, later, a couple more from Chris.

So one day Mark’s questioning the nature of this alleged relationship with Eduardo that he’d had no clue about and that he still doesn’t believe existed, and the next day he’s beginning to consider the benefits of such relationships. Which boil down to: sex. Mark thinks it’s unfair that if Eduardo thought their relationship was something more, he deprived Mark of the sexual aspect of it.

The fact is that Mark hardly pays attention during the last two days of depositions because he’s busy thinking, imagining. He remembers how much Eduardo used to touch him, in a way that was one hundred percent friendly and never led Mark to believe that he wanted to touch him in more intimate ways. A hand on his back, a squeeze to the shoulder, fingers lingering a split second on his neck…Mark realizes that he misses him, and that that’s nothing he wasn’t already doing, before. He knew that diluting Eduardo’s shares would mean the end of their friendship, but Mark knows better than anyone that it’s one thing to have an idea and another thing entirely to carry it out. Mark misses his best friend, his presence, but it’s not until now that he lets himself miss the little details.

Mark sits on the other side of a glass table while they keep arguing and raising questions about things he did years ago, and he watches. Eduardo has opted for such an annoying position, turning his back and playing the victim. Mark looks at his neck, the gap between his shirt and his hair, and he wants to lick right there. Which is new, but it doesn’t scare him. It’s just different, weird. In fact, this way he can look more closely at the muscles of Eduardo’s back. Mark imagines licking him there, tracing muscles and vertebrae with his fingertips.

Which makes him want to call Chris and ask, _Can you spend a quarter of your life thinking you’re straight and then the next day discover that you like guys? And what if you don’t actually like all guys in general? What if you only like one guy?_ But Mark isn’t ready for that conversation and doesn’t think the day will ever come when he _is_ ready. If it’s only Eduardo, Mark can overcome this little sexual-identity crisis with no problem.

Although he should have figured, somewhere in between all that fantasizing, that when it comes to Eduardo these things are never just little things.

Thus comes the day on which they're going to see each other for the last time in his life. They're going to sign an agreement in which Mark will give Eduardo more than he originally even asked for, and Eduardo’s name will again be listed among the co-founders of Facebook. There are a shitload of confidentiality clauses - never to speak to each other nor maintain any type of contact - until Mark starts to feel like this is about Tom Cruise or somebody instead of Eduardo Saverin.

And Mark thinks, _We haven’t done *anything*,_ and he wants so many things that he doesn’t know where to start: he just knows that he _wants._ And if this is the last time they see each other? Mark could care less about all those clauses that stipulate their future non-relationship, as if what they have now wasn’t already a non-relationship. But he knows that Eduardo is stupid like that, that he’ll respect the agreement and, indeed, all of the other stuff that their lawyers came up with and that is therefore what he wants.

_Mark_ wants the kind of breakup sex that everyone talks about. However, he’s a realist. He can’t exactly approach Eduardo and suggest the possibility of one last fuck when in fact it would be the first, and it’s not as if Mark would be at all ready for something like that anyway. The second-best option - and he’d be content with a little - is a little bit of fooling around. Especially if it means that Eduardo would let Mark touch him, because Mark's obsessed with that idea to the point of having had several dreams in which Eduardo lets him do things that Mark doesn’t even know how to do. That is, Mark knows _how_ to, but it’s one thing knowing theory and diagrams and quite another to do it in practice.

The only catch in his plan is the part that involves convincing Eduardo. Which makes him slightly regret not having tried it when they were friends – of course he should have realized then, opened his eyes more and seen _everything_ about Eduardo. Mark will have to be very convincing and use his nonexistent seduction skills.

They’ve already signed a mountain of papers and they’re in the hallway, shaking hands and congratulating each other on having finally reached the end, and Mark does not want to go out to eat with his lawyers to celebrate, thank you very much. Eduardo says goodbye to Gretchen at the end of the hallway; she hugs him and says something into his ear, and Eduardo nods. Then he goes into the men’s room, and Mark knows that it’s now or never.

Nobody else has noticed, so he walks quickly and pushes the door open. There are four cubicles, with a gap of about eight inches between the floor and their doors. Mark crouches down to check that nobody else is in there, then leans idly against the sink. Eduardo comes out nonchalantly – until he sees Mark. He presses his lips into a thin line and turns on one of the taps.

“I have one last question,” says Mark.

Eduardo rubs his hands and dries them with a bit of paper, tosses it into the corner trashcan. He adjusts his tie, stretches his neck a little.

“Do you also get the feeling that we’ve broken up?” Eduardo’s hands still for a second in the middle of smoothing nonexistent wrinkles out of his suit jacket. “Because apparently everyone else takes it for granted that we did, which implies that we had a relationship that I didn’t even know about. And I was wondering if _you_ knew, since you were always much better with that kind of thing than I was.”

Eduardo sighs, and Mark glances at his reflection in the mirror. Tired, older, and suddenly Mark’s never wished so hard to be able to go back, never realized how much he missed Eduardo’s easy smile and guileless look – and not because it was easier to take advantage of. Eduardo looked happy then. Mark swallows, and maybe he’s not seducing him the way he should be, but one thing that he always liked about Eduardo – and that Eduardo always appreciated about him – was that Mark was always honest.

“Did you ever want to be something more?” he asks. _Say yes, please._

Eduardo turns toward him, a little – not completely – and his voice sounds mature and controlled.

“I’m going to say to this to you once and only once, because you shouldn’t be here, Mark.” It’s horrible how impersonal it sounds when he says his name. “Forget me.”

Mark has it on the tip of his tongue: he can’t and he doesn’t want to. He’s never _going_ to want to and he’s never going to be able to. And even if he did want to, he knows he can’t, so he’s not going to bother trying. But that’s all very sentimental and Mark didn’t plan this meeting so he could talk about _feelings._

“The thing is, Eduardo” – he pronounces his name deliberately – “that I have this idea, and frankly, I wish I could forget about it, but I don’t want to.”

Eduardo drops his shoulders, gives in.

“What the fuck do you want, Mark?”

It’s a direct and simple question for which Mark has a million answers and no time. He goes up on tiptoe, grabs Eduardo by the collar and kisses him. He miscalculates his aim and just gets the corner of his mouth, and Eduardo puts a palm on Mark’s chest and pushes him back.

“I think you always wanted something more,” Mark goads him, and Eduardo’s jaw tenses, “but you were too cowardly to try.”

Eduardo grabs him by the arm and forces him into one of the cubicles. Mark finds himself with his back to the wall, and Eduardo braces his hands on either side of Mark’s head, lowers his head and Mark feels Eduardo’s breath on his neck, brushing his cheek. Eduardo mutters something, low enough that despite how close he is, Mark can’t understand what he’s saying. Then he kisses him, and he _does_ aim right and it is, for lack of a better word, perfect.

As unfair as that is.

He wants to keep his eyes closed, but it’s impossible when Eduardo’s tongue is licking into every corner of Mark’s mouth, when he bites. It’s so _dirty_ that Mark hates all of the girls Eduardo’s kissed before. Mark clutches at his waist and presses against him; Eduardo groans when he feels Mark’s erection against his thigh, and Mark moves, searching for friction. He unbuckles his belt with clumsy hands, then the button of his fly, letting out a nervous laugh when his hand slips. Everything’s hot and humid and Eduardo presses his fingers against Mark’s neck, pulling at his hair.

The restroom door opens and someone enters one of the cubicles. Eduardo covers Mark’s mouth with one hand and unzips his pants with the other. While whoever-it-is is pissing on the other side, Eduardo finally touches him and Mark bites at his palm. Eduardo moves his fingers, caressing the head and sliding from top to bottom in a way that makes Mark jealous of Eduardo’s own cock for getting this kind of treatment any time it wants. Mark throws his head back, thumping it against the wall. He hears the water run for a moment.

As soon as they’re alone again Eduardo takes his hand away from Mark’s mouth.

“Oh, fuck,” Mark moans, desperate and so turned on it’s ridiculous. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Eduardo moves him without letting go, his chest against Mark’s back, and Mark whines. His hand speeds up its pace, the other one gripping Mark by the waist. Mark is aware that it’s him who’s making all of these noises, who’s breathing as if the air isn’t reaching his lungs, and he bites his lip so that he won’t say anything. Won’t ask for _more, please._

“Is this what you want?” Eduardo’s asking, close to Mark’s ear, touching it with his lips.

Mark bites down until he tastes blood; he’s not going to answer. It’s one thing to want it, and another to admit it. Anyway, it’s already happening and Eduardo has yielded.

Eduardo laughs, but it doesn’t sound happy or satisfied, and something freezes inside of Mark.

“I get the feeling that this isn’t the first time,” Mark says. “Do this often, Eduardo?”

Eduardo twists his wrist and Mark moans, deeper, desperate. He tries to help him along, because the rhythm is slow and intense and it’s killing him, but Eduardo swats his hand away.

“Want to come?” he asks, voice maliciously sweet.

Mark feels it in the bottom of his stomach, like liquid fire and it’s saying _C’mon, let’s go, fuck, do it._ It’s one minute or maybe five, Eduardo licking his neck, kissing him with his mouth open.

“Then come, Mark.”

It’s pure coincidence. Mark does not have orgasms because someone tells him that he can, much less because _Eduardo_ tells him so. He had to have felt it somehow and just took advantage of the moment. Eduardo pulls away, but Mark feels his breath on his neck, so he’s still there.

“Forget me,” he repeats.

Mark sees the mess he’s made of the perfect bathroom tiling and the stains on his sweatshirt. He realizes that the only person who’s gotten off is him.

What an asshole.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

“Did you get a pet I didn’t know about and then someone killed it?”

Mark uses the glare that scares the interns, new employees who don’t know yet that their boss isn’t really the tyrant they think he is. Of course Dustin is one of those people who’s immune to it. Even back when they first met and Mark looked at him as if he couldn’t believe his bad luck at having to share a room with someone like Dustin, on the basis that it didn’t seem possible that someone like Dustin _existed_ – even then he used to laugh and ignore it.

“Drink this, go on. Drink a little and brighten up that face before some journalist makes up a sad story and then it gets turned into a ‘based on actual events!’ movie.” He hands Mark a cup of something that smells like vodka. “And stop looking, before anyone notices.”

He’s not talking about Mark’s face, and they both know it, but it’s easier to pretend not to understand what he _is_ talking about.

“What are you talking about?”

Dustin laughs and takes a sip of his drink.

“I know there’s no clause that prohibits looking” – Dustin is one of the few people who knows the terms of the settlement – “but if you go on like this, your lawyers are gonna be getting a call about adding one in.”

“That presumes that we don’t even have to agree on these things,” Mark replies, a little tired and very frustrated. “Besides, this has nothing to do with what he does – whatever he does, these days,” he adds, because nobody needs to know that Mark uses Google, much less to keep tabs on his former best friend. It’s doubly shameful and he’s sure that it’s somehow a betrayal of Facebook.

“I understand that he’s pulling some strings in order to give some newcomer his chance at fame.” Dustin does a bad impression of Alan Rickman.

“Someone ought to warn that kid before he sues him.”

“Wow, Mark. That’s pretty mean even for you.” Mark chooses to ignore the sudden seriousness in his tone. “Give him a little space, okay? I doubt that he was any more thrilled about it than you, but at least he handles it better.”

Mark shuts up, although not because he doesn’t want to say any more scathing things about Eduardo. What he doesn’t want is to offend Dustin – it doesn’t matter how much time has passed, how different Dustin’s relationship with Eduardo is now. They aren’t friends like him and Chris, but they aren’t just acquaintances either. If Eduardo’s in town Dustin tries to grab lunch or dinner with him; they email, and sometimes – rarely – talk on the phone. Mark knows that at the beginning it wasn’t easy, that Eduardo didn’t trust Dustin, and (if his ex-best friend is still more or less how Mark remembers him) it’s possible that he still doesn’t totally trust him yet. But Dustin is the persistent type and stupidly honest and Eduardo always had a soft spot for him, so it didn’t surprise Mark that in the end Dustin found a place in Eduardo’s life again. It’s only a matter of time until they return to having the same kind of friendship as ever, or maybe even better.

The problem, if you ask Mark, is that Dustin spends his life protecting the people he likes, the people he cares about even a little. Even in the months when Eduardo wasn’t responding to Dustin’s attempts and Mark practically didn’t allow Eduardo’s name to be spoken in his presence, Dustin came to his defense when he thought it was called for. Mark would like to think that Dustin does the same for him whenever his own name comes up in conversation with Eduardo, but that probably doesn’t happen because Dustin knows him better than anybody.

“Seriously, Mark. I know you miss him, but it’s been years.”

Mark snorts. “Don’t talk bullshit.”

It’s been five and a half months since the settlement. Since Eduardo jerked him off and Mark came like a teenager in the men’s room of one of the most prestigious law firms in the country. Mark doesn’t miss him. It’s worse than that, more visceral, a need that he can’t forget because every time he closes his eyes, every time he comes, he feels the ghost of Eduardo’s touch, Eduardo’s hand and Eduardo’s tongue. And Mark has no exact memory of how he felt in his hand, which is like an itch that Mark can’t get rid of until he experiences it all.

It’s easy to not think about everything he already knows about Eduardo, what he takes for granted – it’s not that he forgets that stuff, it’s just that he doesn’t need to remember it constantly. No, what’s _really_ hard is trying to not think about the stuff he barely knows at all: about everything that Eduardo was, beyond what Mark had always supposed. About what he _is_ \- and that’s what Mark wants to know. He dreams about it, and when he can’t sleep and coding isn’t enough, he ends up jerking off to elaborate fantasies about Eduardo. Already that isn’t even disconcerting. The idea of his sexuality is an abstract thing and Mark’s come to terms with it, though all the same he’s angry at himself for being attracted to his ex-best friend to the point that thinking about sex at _all_ summons the image of Eduardo into his head.

During the last five and a half months Mark has seen Eduardo on three occasions. Two conventions and a charity gala, and at all of them Mark got drunk and went back to his hotel room with only his hand for company, which is nothing like Eduardo’s hand, not even close. Mark is a pathetic case of sexual frustration.

This is the fourth time and Mark doesn’t think he can endure another night like it. He doubts that can get much more mileage out of his imagination and sense-memory. However, he’s aware that this time he’s not going to achieve anything with all the honesty in the world, no matter how brutally direct he might be, no matter how much he tries to provoke Eduardo. He’s going to need the help of something much more powerful: alcohol.

So Mark gets rid of Dustin with the promise that he’s not going to do anything stupid, and bribes one of the waiters to make sure that Eduardo always has a full cup in his hand.

The fact is that Mark has planned tonight up to a certain point and has prepared himself for it. Two months after seeing him for the first time, Mark had something of an epiphany. He’d thought about what he could do with Eduardo, and he knew without a doubt what he wanted. But the problem is that Mark hadn’t ever done that before, and if he wanted to make any kind of impact on Eduardo (and Mark wants two things tonight, and one of them is for Eduardo to not forget it) he needed to do it soon. Mark has practiced a few times, nothing memorable but he’s sure that he has greatly improved since the first time and Eduardo should only feel flattered by the effort that Mark put into it.

An hour later, more or less, Mark watches Eduardo from a corner where nobody can bother him. He sees him walking – with some difficulty – towards the lobby of the hotel where they’re throwing the little party that marks the end of another convention. It’s still early and nobody notices as Mark continues to dodge people who still want to chat with him or congratulate him on Facebook, as if it were still 2003. He runs the last few meters to the elevator that Eduardo has taken, arrives just in time and jams his hand in to keep it from closing.

The doors open to reveal Eduardo, leaning against the mirror and steadying himself on the thin metal railing at hip height.

“Shit.” He lets out an incredulous laugh.

Mark gets in and waits until the elevator starts its ascent. He notices the button – it’s the top floor, probably one of those enormous suites with a ton of little rooms that serve no purpose. He takes a couple steps towards Eduardo, figuring that there are three other elevators, and reaches out to press the button that stops the elevator. Eduardo frowns.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his accent so much more pronounced that it makes Mark’s knees a little weak.

Mark shrugs.

“Push the button, Mark,” Eduardo orders.

Mark shakes his head, takes a couple more steps until his chest is touching Eduardo’s, and Eduardo watches him with wide eyes, scared and something else that Mark doesn’t recognize.

“Mark,” he says, and he probably means it as a warning, but it ends up sounding different.

He sighs, breath smelling of whiskey, and Mark takes him firmly by the lapels of his suit jacket and kisses him, urgent and a little desperate. Eduardo’s mouth is already open and Mark slips his tongue in, tasting the whiskey in his mouth, the saliva, and he runs the tip of his tongue over Eduardo’s teeth. Eduardo lets himself be kissed but doesn’t let go of the railing, and Mark pulls back long enough to give him a challenging look, to press the button necessary to make Eduardo respond. He kisses him again, slower this time and finally Eduardo returns the kiss with more desire. Mark rubs against him a little - they don’t have much time - and when he feels him getting hard he strokes him through the fabric with his fingers. Eduardo moans into his mouth.

Mark gets on his knees, fast, Eduardo watching him with glassy eyes and dilated pupils. His mouth is red and wet with spit. Mark rubs his nose against him, inhales.

“Oh,” Eduardo murmurs.

He watches as Mark undoes his belt and button, as he lowers his zipper and then his pants to his knees. Mark touches him, presses his mouth against the cotton, and that’s all he lets himself do before tugging Eduardo’s underwear down. He breathes deeply and grips Eduardo’s thighs, feels him tremble under his palms and has the feeling that it doesn’t matter what he does and how long it lasts. He licks from base to tip, curls his tongue around.

“Fuck,” Eduardo groans. “Shit.”

Mark grasps the base of his cock with one hand and with the other he holds him against the mirror by the waist. He opens his mouth and sucks slowly until his lips meet his hand and he feels it against his palate and tongue: throbbing, hot and brutally perfect. Eduardo grabs at him with one hand, sinking his fingers into Mark’s hair and holding on. He doesn’t force him to go faster or slower, to swallow more. He just leaves his hand there, moves it and caresses Mark’s cheek with his thumb, and Mark speeds up the pace because this time, it’s not about him.

Eduardo moans and sighs like in that bathroom years ago, when it was Christy who was on her knees - a touch more desperate, almost choked. He pulls upwards on Mark’s hair, and Mark grabs his hand and pins it against the mirror.

“Jesus, Mark, pull off –” he begs, strangled and a little hysterical. _“Mark.”_

Mark only squeezes Eduardo’s hand, intertwining their fingers and feeling the moment when it happens. He digs his nails in and Mark tries to swallow, wants to do it, but chokes and has to pull off. He spits on the floor and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Eduardo has his head thrown back and he’s still holding Mark’s hand. Mark watches for a few seconds, taking advantage of the fact that Eduardo has yet to recover himself and throw a punch and call their lawyers to sue again and ask for a restraining order against Mark.

He presses the button and the elevator starts again; Mark enters another number, a few floors below the one Eduardo’s going to. He pulls his clothes back up, carefully and slowly, while Eduardo looks at him with his head cocked to one side, still drunk. Mark hears the bell when it reaches his floor. He thinks about saying something eloquent: _Try to forget me now_. He doesn’t say it. The only thing he feels like doing is kissing him, so he does, brief and too sweet for what he’s just done. He exits the elevator and doesn’t wait for the doors to close; starts walking down the hallway, down a few flights of stairs. His legs are shaking and he’s having trouble breathing normally, so he sits down on one of the steps. He leans his forehead against the banister.

The only drawback to achieving a goal is that the next thing you want is more.


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

It’s Eduardo’s fault, him and his stupid obsession with not using Facebook like the rest of humanity. Always rebelling against the very thing that made him a millionaire. Mark has just taken one of those big checks with lots of zeros to a New York hospital of his mother’s choosing. He smiled and shook hands and let people take his picture. Mark wishes he could just do this kind of thing anonymously, but Chris considers it important that people know about it – not because he thinks it makes his image more sympathetic but because sometimes people don’t help out until they’re motivated to: whether because they think that it makes them worse people if someone like Mark donates and they don’t, or because they admire Mark and feel that every cause he supports is a good one. The point is that Mark understands the logic of it, and if he has to fake it, well, he fakes it.

Mark has to look twice, because it’s not possible. This isn’t a conference or a charity gala or any type of social gathering that they might both be at. His assistant reviewed the guest list, even though it was a much smaller event, looking for names that could pose a problem when it comes to Mark behaving himself. And Chris approved the list, so Mark doesn’t understand what the hell Eduardo Saverin is doing half-hidden in a corner.

“Care to tell me what _he’s_ doing here?” he asks Chris.

Chris raises his eyebrows, not knowing who he’s talking about, and then follows Mark’s line of sight.

“Oh – I’m gonna. Um –” Chris sounds unsure: a bad sign.

_“Chris,”_ he warns.

“He shouldn’t be here, he promised me he wouldn’t come,” Chris explains, and Mark turns to look at him, because it’s not a novelty that Chris knows exactly what’s happening in Eduardo’s life, but this, this reaction is new and disconcerting. “He’s dating one of the interns, okay? He called me a few weeks ago because the guy invited him to come, but Eduardo wasn’t sure about it and I asked him to please not come. He _swore_ he wouldn’t come.”

Chris turns and looks at Eduardo for a few seconds; he sighs, exasperated and a little angry, and Mark feels victorious that for once in his life it wasn’t him who caused Chris to get that way (and, above all, that it was Eduardo instead). A young guy with shiny hair and a disgustingly perfect jawline comes up to Eduardo; he says something into his ear, and Eduardo nods, flushing.

“Make him go away or we’re done here.”

“I’m gonna kill him,” Chris says.

It doesn’t take very long to find out that Jake Banks is a pediatrician who works as an intern at the hospital to which Mark just made a donation that will be used to expand the Pediatric Floor and improve their facilities and research lab. It’s not the kids’ fault, and Mark is sincerely happy that his money will help them, but it rankles in his gut that one of the indirect beneficiaries is Eduardo’s new boyfriend. The mere idea of Jake Banks using Mark’s money to save lives and advance his career is just – painful.

And as if that weren’t enough, the guy is one of those doctors that travels to the Third World to provide his invaluable help. His Facebook is full of pictures of him treating wounds, caring for patients, and holding children with a perfect smile. Chris and Dustin know him, and he’s gone out with them a couple of times.

“Tell me, Mark,” Dustin asks, lying on the couch in Mark’s office while Mark tries to fix a bug in the code without bursting a blood vessel, “does it make me a bad person to not want to listen over and over again to stories about how thanks to Doctor Ken, there are kids in Africa who _now_ only have to worry about not starving to death?”

Trust someone like Dustin – honest, generous, ridiculously friendly Dustin – to take a dislike to Jake Banks. And it’s not that Dustin’s aware of how _Mark_ feels about Jake Banks. To the rest of the world, Jake Banks is his ex-best friend’s boyfriend, and Mark hasn’t said or done anything to make them think that he feels anything apart from indifference about him. Chris seems to think that he’s a great guy as long as he makes Eduardo happy; and if Dustin wants to see the friend with whom he’s rebuilding a friendship based in a fucked-up past, then he has to grin and bear it. But every time he returns from one of their outings, he complains about Jake Banks as if his life depended on it.

“Mark, tell me you hate him too so I don’t feel so bad,” he begs.

“I hate him,” Mark answers. “Hate him, hate him, hate him.”

“‘Today I saved a helpless child from the jaws of death,’” says Dustin, in what Mark assumes is a Jake Banks impression. “‘Jake: 3,548, Death: 0. What’s new at Facebook, Dustin?’ - ‘Oh, nothing: I did a pornographic drawing on the Wall, I fixed the code that lets you upload all those photos with all the kids you save around the world that you like to show off, and I considered making a deal with the devil to destroy your life.’”

Mark bites back his laughter with difficulty.

In the end they decide to donate a few million divided among several NGOs (but not before making sure that the money will have a direct impact on the people that it’s supposed to be helping and that it won’t get lost in bureaucracy until only ten percent of it ultimately gets through) – all of them working in areas where Jake Banks has saved many lives.

It may be childish, but it makes Mark feel good. For weeks he has to restrain himself from calling Eduardo and telling him what he did.

The day that a picture of Jake and Eduardo appears on Doctor Ken’s Facebook (in the middle of Manhattan, like a couple of stupid tourists), Mark goes out with Dustin and some employees, gets drunk and ends up hooking up with a guy who finds Mark interesting and amusing and knows that he’s the creator of Facebook but doesn’t give a damn about how many zeros he’s got on his bank balance. Kyle, an architect, a couple of years younger, smart and kind of quiet. Mark doesn’t know how it happens, but one morning he’s eating cereal with skim milk at a near-stranger’s kitchen counter and thinking about the best way to tell the guy that it was great and Mark’s grateful to have lost his virginity to him, and then within two weeks Kyle is this fun guy who doesn’t care that Mark only spends time with him for the sex. In that aspect it’s a win-win arrangement, although Mark doesn’t know if he’s actually winning or losing because he has nothing to compare it with.

To his bitter and everlasting chagrin.

If it were something more serious Mark might be worrying about how none of his friends approve of their relationship – or _whatever it is that you have with this guy,_ as Chris refers to it. And it’s not that he gives a fuck, but he’d figured that Dustin, at least, would like Kyle. Part of him hoped that Dustin would make fun of Kyle, that he’d give him some ridiculous nickname and complain about him every time he saw Eduardo: “‘See that big, beautiful building, Dustin? Well, I’d like to tell you that I designed it.’”

That way Eduardo would know that Mark isn’t alone, even if what he has with Kyle isn’t quite as idyllic and vomit-inducingly perfect.

The first time that Mark sees him again after the hospital fiasco is in the hallway when he’s attending one of the shareholders’ meetings. The first time that Eduardo sees _him_ since the elevator is in the men’s room on the second floor. Kyle just gave him a blowjob and Mark feels relaxed and prepared to deal with all the people who he thinks have no right to a vote in the decisions Facebook makes. Kyle gives him a pat on the back and exits, followed by Mark. It’s then that he sees Eduardo, paused with the sink tap on and watching in the mirror. It’s likely that he heard part of what just happened, if not all of it, and when he sees Mark his eyes go impossibly wide.

Kyle gives him a quick kiss on the lips and Mark’s sure it must hurt when Eduardo’s jaw hits the floor.

Mark shrugs, holding Eduardo’s gaze in the mirror, not saying a word. He leaves the bathroom, no longer feeling so relaxed or ready to put up with bullshit. He hopes that Eduardo heard everything.

A few minutes before the meeting starts Mark is listening to Sean talk about a trip to Barbados and a girl who he hopes was of legal age, mostly because even if Chris doesn’t believe it he does worry about his health. During the meeting Mark develops a headache, listening even though he doesn’t want to and putting up with Dustin’s sulky looks off to one side. Afterwards he asks Dustin what the hell’s up, when Eduardo escapes with a brief hug to Chris that leaves him standing still in the doorway, a little surprised. Dustin refuses to answer and spends two days not talking to Mark. He uses various programmers and personal assistants to send Mark messages that are limited to Facebook business. He won’t even communicate with him via email. When Mark asks him, Chris says that he doesn’t know what happened or why Dustin is suddenly mad at Mark, but he asks Mark to _please_ fix it, even if to do that Mark has to take the blame. And he stresses the fact that he doesn’t care whether or not Mark _is_ to blame, which is pretty unfair.

On day three Mark can’t stand it anymore and he corners Dustin when Dustin’s working with one of the groups of programmers. Mark waves a hand and they all flee.

“The silent treatment ends here and now or you’re fired, regardless of the number of shares you own.”

Dustin crosses his arms, screws his mouth up like a little kid.

“You can’t spend the rest of your life not talking to me. Sooner or later you’ll have to.”

Dustin looks defiantly at him. Mark tries a different strategy.

“Come on, Dustin, if I don’t know why you aren’t speaking to to me, I can’t fix it.”

Dustin pouts, then sighs and gives in.

“It’s Kyle.”

“C’mon already, Dustin,” Mark says, tired and a little angry, because he’s always stayed quiet even when _his_ friends’ hookups seemed like idiots.

“I don’t like him, okay, Mark? And I’m sorry,” he hastens to say, though Mark knows that he isn’t sorry at all. “It’s just that – you can do whatever you want with him, but don’t do it here. That’s all I ask.”

Mark doesn’t know what bothers him more: having to convince Dustin to talk to him again, or the fact that Eduardo told Dustin about what happened in the bathroom.

“I’m not about to marry him, but what if I fall in love with him?” he asks – it’s impossible to affirm it outright. “And it turns out that he’s the love of my life and I don’t do anything because my best friend doesn’t support it? It’s very selfish on your part.”

“Cut the crap, Mark.” Dustin laughs a little, as if the idea that Mark could feel that way is impossible. “When you realize who the love of your life is, I’ll be the first to support you and you know it. So don’t try to guilt-trip me.”

The thing is: Mark enjoys sex, the things Kyle lets him do and the things he lets Kyle do to him, too. But he’s constantly wondering how it would be if it were Eduardo who was letting him do all of that and if Mark could get Eduardo to do everything he wants him to do. He thinks about it so much that more than once he has to bite his tongue so as not to say it out loud, so as not to say Eduardo’s name when he’s asked to do it like this or like that, harder or slower. It’s exhausting.

The dreams keep getting more intense and on multiple occasions Mark wakes up with the sheets wet and sticky, as if he were fifteen years old all over again.

Two months pass until they see each other again.

Mark hasn’t been to Boston in years, doesn’t go unless he has a reason – and it has nothing to do with how the memories there are better and hurt more, it’s just that he hasn’t _needed_ to go to Boston. When Chris graduated, Facebook was still in danger despite its success; it was at the very beginning and they couldn’t leave, and when Chris returned to Palo Alto to take charge of Facebook’s PR full-time, Dustin threw a party to make up for it and to celebrate it with their friends.

Mark gave a talk at Harvard early this afternoon and another one an hour ago and he’s thinking about getting spectacularly drunk. He’s already on his fourth beer and is looking for Dustin amid the crowd to see if he wants to raid the minibar in his room when he sees him sitting at one of the round tables, talking animatedly with Eduardo.

And Mark wants, lusts, _needs_ like he never has before in his life.

He finishes his beer in one gulp and it takes him five minutes to go up to his room, another ten to open his computer and hack the necessary pages, five to go down to Reception and twenty minutes to reach Eduardo’s hotel. It’s surprisingly easy convincing the lady at Reception that of course he can go up and _Please, don’t call him, it’s a surprise_ when he uses the smile with the dimples.

He wants it so much that his hands shake when he opens the door with the card that she gave him. When he gets naked and lies down in the middle of the bed and readies himself while he waits. And it’s pointless to think that it _smells_ like Eduardo in such an impersonal place, it’s probably just his memory, but Mark inhales and smells that familiar scent, feels the nostalgia in his chest and his throat gets dry thinking about how much he wants it. Years ago it would have seemed impossible, to get to this point where Mark isn’t capable of thinking about anything else.

Mark hears the doorknob and holds his breath, stays very silent and still, and waits. Eduardo comes in, feet dragging. Mark sees one shoe kicked off and then the other, and then Eduardo appears.

And shrieks.

“For the love of God!” He puts a hand to his chest. “Mark! What the fuck are you doing there? Jesus Christ…”

Eduardo is looking at him, as if he didn’t want to but at the same time it was impossible for him to look the other way. He puts his hands on his hips, then flings out an arm and points histrionically at Mark, waiting for an answer. Mark shrugs. He can feel himself flushing, is very conscious that he’s completely naked and Eduardo is still dressed and keeps looking at him out of the corner of his eye.

When Eduardo realizes that Mark isn’t going to say anything, he bends down and picks up the clothes that Mark has left scattered around the room. He approaches and leaves them on the bed. He’s trying really hard to keep looking straight ahead. Mark shifts up to a kneeling position.

“Get dressed,” Eduardo says.

“Take off your clothes,” Mark orders, as if he were speaking to one of his programmers, direct and simple.

“God _dammit_ – look, I’m going to go into the bathroom, and when I come out I don’t want you to be here.”

Eduardo turns and Mark reaches out, catches him by the wrist and pulls him in with all his strength. Eduardo tumbles on top of him with a not-very-masculine squeak. Mark starts getting him out of his clothes, or trying.

“Get off me –”

Mark grasps at his neck, his shoulder, wherever he can, and kisses him. Eduardo’s moving his arms without knowing where to put them, and Mark takes advantage of that to push off Eduardo’s suit jacket. He undoes a couple of shirt buttons, and when the rest won’t give he yanks the whole shirt upwards. It comes off and Mark keeps undressing him. He bites at Eduardo’s neck and then kisses him, opens his mouth and licks where he’s marked him with his teeth. Kisses him again, trying to distract him while he takes off Eduardo’s pants, and feels him hard and perfect against his thigh. He grinds his hips in, and Eduardo grunts.

“You’re an asshole,” he says.

“I know that already,” Mark replies.

But Eduardo is finally naked and Mark allows himself a few glorious seconds to feel his skin against his own, to memorize the sensation of it, and he thinks that his imagination could never have done justice to this moment. Eduardo holds onto his hips and they kiss more slowly. The friction is overwhelming and at the same time it’s not enough.

“Come on, Eduardo,” Mark insists.

“What –” Eduardo’s eyes have gone so dark that Mark can barely see the brown in them.

“Do something.”

“What do you want?”

Mark doesn’t want to say it, but he supposes that he ought to. At least this time.

“Your fingers,” he replies confidently.

Eduardo stares at him as he takes his hand. Mark takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and opens them again and Eduardo hasn’t stopped looking at him. He moves Eduardo’s hand, slides his fingers.

“Lower,” he demands.

“What?”

“Your fingers. Lower,” Mark clarifies.

Eduardo whispers something that sounds like _Fuck._ He kisses Mark, caressing Mark’s tongue with his own and biting his lip when they pull apart. He lets go of him and moves his hand until Mark feels one fingertip touching him right where he wants it. Eduardo rubs around with two and tries to put one in, just the very tip, but it slips in easily up to the second knuckle.

“Son of a _bitch,”_ he says, startled.

“I got bored of waiting,” Mark explains.

He reaches for the lube that he’d left to one side of the bed. Eduardo smears it onto his index and middle fingers. He puts one in first and moves it agonizingly slowly, resting his forehead on Mark’s chest and murmuring words that Mark can’t hear; the only thing he hears is Eduardo’s breathing against his skin. He writhes in the sheets when Eduardo adds another finger and twists them unexpectedly.

“Fuck,” he moans.

Eduardo finds a perfect rhythm and doesn’t stop moving his fingers until they hit bottom, turning Mark into a total mess. He squeezes the sheets in his fists, spreads his legs wider and Eduardo bites at his nipple. Mark feels it down to his toes, in the pit of his stomach.

“Enough already,” he says, near-breathless. “Now. Now you can.”

Eduardo stops and lifts his head to look at him. His cheeks are flushed, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. Mark thinks of a word that defines him to perfection, but it’s too cheesy and he’d rather forget it.

“You can fuck me.”

He bites his lip. Eduardo’s looking at him in such a way that he knows what’s going to happen. But the only thing that does happen is that Eduardo presses his fingers in, pushing until there’s no deeper to go, and Mark moans, desperate. Without taking his fingers out, Eduardo shifts his body up and replies into Mark’s ear:

“No.”

He flexes his fingers inside him, moving them until he can insert another one and Mark arches on the bed. He’s on the edge, grunting and groaning, _more_ and _please_ slipping from his mouth. Eduardo blows on the tip of his cock, licks and sucks and moves his fingers inside Mark, impossibly hot and frantic, until Mark feels himself hit the back of his throat and he comes. Squeezes his eyes shut and arches his back and feels Eduardo swallow.

“Wardo –” He barely pronounces it, with just the two syllables; he hasn't let himself say it like that in years.

Eduardo pulls away and drops to one side, covering his face with an arm. He’s still hard and Mark tells himself that no, this time they _both_ will, and Mark will see it on his face when it happens, the way it looks in his eyes.

He turns toward Eduardo on the bed and takes his cock in his right hand, begins to move; Eduardo restrains his wrist for a few seconds, but Mark doesn’t stop stroking him up and down and Eduardo lets go. Mark buries his nose in Eduardo’s hair, his neck, bites his earlobe. Eduardo smells of sweat and of something else that Mark hadn’t known was just _Eduardo_ until he’d lost it.

Eduardo lifts his head and kisses him, open-mouthed. He runs his tongue across Mark’s lips, his teeth, sighing into his mouth, and Mark hasn’t ever kissed _anybody_ like this, this smooth and dirty. Eduardo tenses, suddenly, his neck and all of his muscles, and Mark kisses him while he comes, feels it on his fingers and doesn’t stop moving them until Eduardo’s whole body relaxes.

They spend a few seconds like that, catching their breath. Then Eduardo pushes Mark’s hand away and gets up. Naked, he walks over to the bathroom.

“I want you gone by the time I come out of here.”

He shuts the door, and Mark waits. He wonders what would happen if he didn’t leave, if Eduardo would stay locked in the bathroom all night just to avoid seeing him. He wipes the sweat from his body with the sheet and dresses quickly. He takes care to make noise as he leaves, so that Eduardo can come out of hiding without fear of running into him again.

Mark _still_ wants, lusts, needs.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

Kyle disappears from the picture on another drunken night. Mark wakes up with a horrible hangover and bits and pieces of memory from the night before: confessions, things that only he knew until now. 

Actually, the last time he sees him is that morning, both of them in Mark’s bed, still wearing last night’s wrinkled clothes.

“Do you know what the chances are of finding somebody who makes you feel that way?” Kyle is asking him.

Mark doesn’t want to talk about feelings, much less his own. He remembers saying _I miss him_ and _not the sex – I miss Eduardo, my best friend._ He misses him in all of the empty spaces that Eduardo had left behind and that Mark had been ignoring, the ones he’d been discovering over the years since he’d failed to convince himself that he didn’t need Eduardo in his life. He’s realizing that he needs him, that he’d never stopped doing so.

“I get that it can’t be easy, given your history together” – Mark snorts – “but try a little harder.” 

“We’re talking about a guy who hates me.”

Kyle bursts out laughing and turns over in bed. He props his elbow on the pillow and looks at Mark, disheveled and patient. 

“A guy who hates you doesn’t let you suck his dick in an elevator,” he explains. “A guy who hates you doesn’t finger you until you’re coming in his mouth so hard you forget your own mother’s name.”

Mark covers his face with his hands. “You had to mention my mother?”

“For being the guy who founded Facebook, you have no fucking clue about relationships.” His tone is light, but Mark has heard that phrase from enough other people to know that it’s not just a throwaway comment.

“There isn’t any relationship here.”

Kyle sighs and drops his head onto the pillow.

“Keep on denying it, maybe _somebody_ will believe you,” he says sarcastically. “I bet the only person deeper in denial than you is Eduardo.”

Mark’s stomach knots. He doesn’t know why, but the idea that Eduardo denies it – that to him it’s nothing even remotely similar to a relationship – freaks him out a little. 

“I’d promise you that you’re gonna try again, except I know you well enough to _know_ that you’ll do it. You’re a single-minded guy,” says Kyle, with a lazy smile. 

Mark looks at him and grins. In another world Kyle could have been something more, Dustin and Chris would have accepted him, and they wouldn’t be having this conversation. In a world without Eduardo. 

“What are you going to do about Doctor Ken?” Kyle asks.

God, for a moment there – for a glorious and perfect moment in which his life didn’t suck so hard – Mark had totally forgotten about Jake’s existence.

“You have to get rid of the competition,” advises Kyle, and Mark raises an eyebrow. “There’s no need for you to make it look like an accident, or for him to turn up floating in the Hudson River. I’m sure you can think of something.”

Mark thinks, _Where did I find this guy?_ and _I have more luck than I deserve._

“So. One last fuck?”

Kyle laughs and gets out of bed.

“On the one hand there’s the fact that you wouldn’t be thinking about me, and I’ve had a great time with you, Mark, but I don’t want to start hating you. And on top of that, it’s very likely that one of the two of us would throw up, and I really don’t want that to be my last memory of you.”

He’s looking at himself in the mirror while he combs his hair with his fingers. Mark sits on the bed.

“I’m going to miss you,” he confesses, because Kyle is, in his own way, too good for Mark and the truth is that they had a great time together.

“We’ll always have Facebook, yeah?”

So Kyle leaves, but he’s one of those friends that Mark makes the effort to keep up with, even over Facebook.

Mark mulls over the idea of getting rid of Jake in a way that doesn’t involve anybody’s imminent death or paying some criminal to dispose of the body or an elaborate Patrick Bateman-esque plan. It’s Kyle himself who sends him a Facebook message with a report on Darfur – and it’s at times like these that Mark doesn’t understand how Dustin could possibly have had so many problems with someone like Kyle, when they would have gotten on _so well_ with each other. 

Mark’s assistant is responsible for getting him the numbers of interested parties who’d be able to help. He calls one of the organizations to which he and Dustin donated millions, interests himself – genuinely – in how things are going, and finally asks the magic question: _What more can I do?_ And while Helen’s telling him all about how his money is helping and what they’ve invested it in, she mentions that they’re going to send over a small medical team to cover certain healthcare needs. Mark, being the good person he is, can’t help himself.

“I know the perfect guy for it.”

He gives Helen all of the information she needs to contact Jake Banks, with the promise that she won’t reveal who suggested his name. A week later he gets a call from her thanking him for the new donation he made – on behalf of Facebook, this time – and telling him that Jake Banks will be part of the team traveling to Darfur in the next few weeks.

It’s three in the afternoon when he calls Kyle and tells him how everything went. They have a beer to celebrate, Mark in his office, feet up on the table, and Kyle on the other side of town, in the little office he has in the firm where he works. 

“I’m not supposed to be drinking,” Kyle says.

“If you get fired, I’ll hire you to design a school and name it after me,” Mark tells him.

“I wish I’d recorded this conversation.” He’s laughing. “Good luck, Mark.”

Mark doesn’t reply to that, and they end by agreeing to someday make time to see each other and have a beer in person.

The following days are confusing. Neither Chris nor Dustin comments on the fate of Jake Banks, not even so much as a _Poor Eduardo, his boyfriend is going to the other side of the world, what relationship survives that?_ Mark happens to look at his Facebook, which turns out to be a big mistake since Jake’s status is informing all his friends about his upcoming adventure in Darfur and of the 46 **Like** s, Eduardo Saverin is one of them. When your boyfriend is going to Darfur for God knows how long, one does not **Like** it.

“We should create another option for statuses,” he tells Dustin, too restless to keep his mouth shut. “People don’t have to like everything their friends say. We should include an option where they can let the other person know how much they _don’t_ like it.”

“And what would we call it?” Dustin asks, interested and kidding at the same time. “ **Dislike**?”

“ **Hate**.”

“That’s a strong word.”

“Not strong enough.”

Dustin narrows his eyes, looking at him in that way where he clearly _knows_ that there’s something more to it and Mark is speaking in code. Mark flees before Dustin has the chance to ask. After telling Kyle everything, he doesn’t think that he can keep his secret for much longer. He has the feeling that if Dustin or Chris were to ask about Eduardo, he’d tell _them_ everything, too. (He can’t predict how Dustin would react, but Chris would kill him with his own hands.)

The problem is that there isn’t another opportunity in the near future – he can’t ask about Eduardo and his boyfriend without causing suspicion, and Mark doesn’t know what purpose his own creation even serves anymore if it isn’t capable of giving him the relevant information. He’s doubting everything so much that he wonders whether it would be better to forget it, move on, act as if nothing had happened when he sees him again. Surely Eduardo has forgotten it already – and the idea makes him feel stupid, as if none of it actually mattered as much as Mark thought it did.

He tries.

Until Eduardo appears at his door on a Friday night, dripping wet because it’s raining, with his clothes and hair plastered to his body and a tense, cold look on his face. He walks in uninvited, mostly because Mark is so surprised that he’s having trouble articulating a single word without sounding like a moron. Eduardo is looking at him as if it’s not possible that Mark is the way that he is, that Mark _exists_ \- and not in the way that Mark would like. It’s not a good sign.

“I got the most interesting call, Mark.” His tone is measured and steady. “Imagine my surprise when Jake called me. But not –” He smirks, face turning ugly, and for the first time Mark has doubts about his brilliant idea, his perfect plan. “He called to talk to me about _you,_ to send you his thanks. So I asked him why, since as far as I knew you guys didn’t even know each other, and then he told me that it’s thanks to you that he’s in Darfur doing what he loves most.”

Mark lets go of the doorknob and crosses his arms.

“I already knew that you had no problem getting rid of people, but this is the last straw.”

“You should be happy for him. I mean, he is, right? Unless that’s what’s bothering you –” Eduardo’s mouth tightens, his eyebrows knit together; Mark knows that expression, and he hates it – “that your boyfriend left you to go do something more important, and the truth is that that makes you _happy._ ”

There’s a voice in his head that’s warning him: _Careful._ It doesn’t sound like Chris or Dustin. It’s the part of his conscience that speaks in Mark’s own voice, that’s constantly afraid, that always thinks he’s going to lose. 

Eduardo runs his hands through his hair, pulling at it a little, and drops his arms to his sides.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he cries. “You have no fucking clue, Mark. I broke up with Jake more than a month ago.”

Mark knows it the second, the minute his face betrays him, the moment in which he holds his breath for what feels like days, holds it and finally lets it out. Eduardo is suddenly looking at him differently, with a real curiosity that eclipses his anger.

“Are you going to tell me why Jake is in Darfur?”

“He’s a good doctor.”

“Mark.”

“No.”

“No _what?”_ Eduardo demands, exasperated. 

“No, I’m not going to tell you why.”

Eduardo raises his hands to his face, resting his palms against his eyes before taking them away. He opens his eyes very wide and then shut them; takes a breath, and looks at Mark.

“We’re not doing this again, okay? Let’s do it right for once in our lives. _Tell me_ why you’re the reason that Jake is in Darfur.”

Mark feels a pressure in his chest. He’s not ready for the now-or-never. He’s not ready to confess and have Eduardo leave with the answer he wants. He’s not ready for Eduardo to go away again, even though he’d never really come back at all, not in the way that he should have come back – Mark recognizes that what he has right now isn’t enough to be worth mentioning. He ducks his head, looking down at his bare feet. He hasn’t ever missed Eduardo as much as he does right now, in this instant that seems to be the last, and he wishes that Eduardo could still understand him without Mark needing to say it. There was once a time when they could communicate without even talking. 

Eduardo sighs deeply and steps in front of Mark, reaches for the doorknob, but before he can turn it Mark covers his hand with his own. He makes an effort not to squeeze, not to grip more tightly than he should.

“I hated, no, I _hate_ the idea of you being with him,” he mutters. 

Eduardo jerks as if he’d been slapped, stares at him in disbelief.

“I can’t stand it,” Mark continues, hands trembling and fists clenching. “It isn’t what was supposed to happen, it wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Excuse me?” Eduardo demands, furious and hysterical. “Sending my ex-boyfriend to another continent was part of the plan to _what,_ Mark? Get me into your bed? Oh my God.”

He walks into the middle of the living room, paces from one side to the other. 

“You’re unbelievable. Even after all the time that’s gone by, still – still –” He swallows. “You have no right, goddammit. Was that the plan?” He looks at him, as if he can hardly believe what he’s saying, hardly believe that what he suspects could be the truth. “Fuck, Mark, was this a plan to get me into your bed?”

“In my bed, on the couch –” Mark answers, shrugging. “The location didn’t matter. Doesn’t matter.”

Eduardo opens his mouth and blinks.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he says in a low voice.

Mark comes closer, keeping his arms at his sides.

“I don’t just hate the idea of you being with him. I hate the possibility of you being with _anybody_ else.”

“You can’t do this to me,” Eduardo all but pleads.

His voice is shaking and Mark wants to take his hand, hold him, kiss him, anything. He clenches his fists harder, fingernails digging into his palms. 

“You have no idea, Eduardo. You have no _idea_ of the things I want to do to you,” he says, with all the confidence he’s capable of, and it’s a miracle that his voice comes out so steady.

Eduardo lifts his gaze, and Mark tilts his head and watches him long enough, as long as he’s willing to bear before kissing him. Eduardo exhales and Mark steadies him with one hand on the nape of his neck, drawing him in close, pushing his wet hair aside. They pull apart and Mark rests his forehead against Eduardo’s.

“It’s not fair,” Eduardo whispers.

“I think it is.”

Mark is still smirking when he kisses him and pulls off his drenched jacket. He tosses it aside and takes Eduardo’s face in both hands, arches against his body and Eduardo yields, wrapping his arms around Mark’s waist and holding on. He walks him backwards until they hit the couch; Eduardo falls gracelessly onto it and Mark promptly straddles him. They kiss, slow and wet, Eduardo keeping him there with his hands on Mark’s hips and Mark tugs at his hair a little, getting his fingers and the front of his t-shirt damp. 

“You’re wet,” he murmurs against his mouth.

Eduardo blushes suddenly and Mark moves his hips, seeking contact and grinning when he feels it. He nips at Eduardo’s jaw, licks his way up to his ear. He rotates his hips slowly and Eduardo groans. He throws his head back and Mark noses at his neck. 

“This is not a good idea,” Eduardo says breathlessly.

“It’s a fantastic idea,” contradicts Mark. 

“We’ve gone from not speaking to each other to _this,_ Mark. No, don’t -” his voice trembles when Mark licks his neck right where the pulse beats – “we should…it’d be better to talk and…it’s not…”

Mark laughs. Eduardo is a hot mess between his legs, so much better than he’d imagined. 

“You can’t even finish a sentence, and you want to _talk,”_ he says smugly.

He slips one hand between their bodies and touches Eduardo, hard against the palm of his hand. Eduardo sucks in a sudden breath. Mark raises an eyebrow and begins to move his hand slowly.

“Mark -” Eduardo protests, but it comes out as a grunt.

“Have you thought about all the time that we wasted?” Mark unbuttons Eduardo’s pants, pulls the zipper down and touches him, his hand recognizing the heat and the feel of it against his palm. “Because sometimes, when I’m not thinking about everything I want to do to you, I’m thinking about how we could have done it a long time ago. And then I think about everything I’d let you do to me.”

Mark watches Eduardo’s throat, the curve when he swallows and his chest swells for a second before he breathes out a sigh. He wants it so much that he doesn’t think it’s possible for Eduardo to ever even begin to understand _how_ much.

“Come on, Wardo, let me –” he says against his lips, stroking them with his tongue. 

Eduardo sits up abruptly, holding onto Mark’s waist with one arm and pulling his t-shirt up with the other. They’re kissing and shedding their clothes as fast as they can. Mark sinks his knees into the couch, astride Eduardo, and makes him lift up to pull down his pants and underwear. Eduardo takes Mark’s right hand and spreads it out, licks his palm and then his fingers one by one without breaking eye contact, as Mark thinks to himself that it’s a miracle he hasn’t come simply from what’s happening right now. Then he guides Mark’s hand, wet with his spit, to his erection and Mark can’t stop watching, as if it were happening to someone else - but it’s him, and it’s Eduardo. 

All of the things he wants are piling up in his head, always floating on the surface and now they’re blurring his vision. Eduardo bites his lip and clutches at Mark’s neck; Mark jerks him off slowly, leans down and whispers:

“Let me fuck you?”

He feels Eduardo shudder against his chest, in his hand.

“Jesus, Mark –”

“I think about fucking you _all the time,”_ he says, so scared his heartbeat is just waiting to continue. 

Eduardo nods, hauls Mark in by his hair and kisses him desperately, breathless.

“Fuck, yes, okay –” he answers between kisses.

Mark shifts himself, glancing around and thinking where he might have lube and condoms that doesn’t involve having to go up to his room. Maybe in the downstairs bathroom?

“Don’t move.” He kisses Eduardo. “One second, don’t move.”

He gets up and Eduardo takes the opportunity to divest himself of the pants he still has around his ankles, his shoes and socks, and Mark struggles to look away and find what he needs. Luckily there’s a half-full tube and a couple of condoms in one of the drawers. Mark kicks off his pants and heads back to the living room.

He announces, “Got it –”

Suddenly there’s no air reaching his lungs. Eduardo’s sitting on the couch, legs open and one finger inside. His skin is shining with sweat, he’s all perfect angular lines and Mark can’t take it anymore.

“You are ridiculously hot,” he blurts out, like a teenager too horny to control what comes out of his mouth because he can’t believe his luck, which is exactly how Mark feels right now.

Eduardo looks at him, flushed, and Mark goes down on his knees on the floor in front of him. He smears his forefinger with a ton of lube and brings it in close; Eduardo makes to pull his own finger out and Mark catches Eduardo’s wrist with his left hand, holds him inside, shaking his head. He takes a breath and touches his finger to Eduardo, moving until he finds his hole and pushes in gently, slipping it next to Eduardo’s own finger. He feels Eduardo’s spasms, Eduardo’s legs shaking and Mark looks at him, his face, as he closes his eyes and bites his lip - looks at their fingers, together, inside Eduardo. It’s possibly the most unbelievable thing that’s happened in his life to date. 

Mark shifts his finger next to Eduardo’s; the friction’s totally different, better, and he twists it in little circles for a few seconds that feel like eternity. 

“Another,” Eduardo murmurs. “Another one, Mark.”

Mark withdraws his forefinger, regretting the loss of contact, and applies more lube. He inhales and moves both fingers, Eduardo taking them with his own until he has all three inside, deep, and grinds himself down on them. Mark bites his tongue so as not to say something pathetic and stupid, something that makes him look even more desperate. He screws his fingers in, moves them and Eduardo moans and fucks himself against them, and Mark is seriously about to have a stroke here.

“Now, now,” Eduardo breathes. “Mark, you can, now –”

This cannot be his life.

Eduardo pulls his own finger out and Mark still has both of his inside and he doesn’t know if he can obey, doesn’t know if he wants to stop doing this _ever._ Eduardo takes Mark’s hand between his own and pulls it out too. He bends down towards him.

_“Fuck_ me, Mark.”

Mark gets up and strips off his underwear, kicks them aside. He wipes his hand on the t-shirt that he’d dropped on the floor earlier, opens the condom and puts it on. Eduardo has already laid himself out on the couch, a cushion under his back and one leg thrown over the back of the couch. Mark positions himself between Eduardo’s spread legs, steadies himself against his back and guides himself in with one hand. It’s so hot and tight and far, far better than he’d ever imagined. Eduardo wraps one leg around him and shoves him in deeper until Mark feels his hips right up against Eduardo’s skin, their sweat mingling. He presses his fingers into Eduardo’s hip, leaves white marks on his skin.

Eduardo writhes underneath him, circles his hips and Mark stifles a groan.

“Wait a second.”

Eduardo clutches his neck and draws him in until he reaches his mouth. He kisses him sweet and tender for the first time tonight, for the first time in his life. He strokes Mark’s back with one hand and slowly Mark begins to move, bracing himself on his arms and watching the place where they’re joined, how a part of him is inside and outside, inside all along. Inside Eduardo. Little by little he quickens the pace, Eduardo gripping his shoulders and digging his fingertips in, moaning and arching. He feels the point of contact between his stomach and Eduardo’s cock, electric, his prickling skin and the almost unbearable heat of his body. 

“Touch yourself, Wardo.”

Eduardo obeys, using one hand while the other fastens itself in Mark’s hair, twisting it between his fingers and shoving his tongue into Mark’s mouth, licking in the most deliciously dirty way possible. He groans, “Oh, fuck, fuck –”

Eduardo loses it, gripping the couch and coming between their bodies, wet and violent, and Mark holds out for two more thrusts before following him. He flops down against Eduardo, muscles stiff and stomach sticky. Then he sits up to pull out, slow and careful. He picks up the t-shirt from earlier and cleans off Eduardo’s chest and stomach, then himself. He takes off the condom, ties it and wraps it up in the t-shirt, drops it on the floor again. He lies down on top of Eduardo, ear at the level of his heart and he listens to it recover its rhythm.

Then he registers the touch of Eduardo’s fingers on his neck, stroking his hair. Mark feels his own wild heartbeat, and hopes that Eduardo doesn’t. To be like this with him, relaxed for the first time in a long time – it’s new, it’s pleasant, and it’s frightening.

“Are you going to leave?” he asks, when what he’s actually thinking is _This time, don’t go._

“I don’t think I could walk very far right now,” Eduardo replies, and Mark knows that he’s smiling.

Mark thinks about the different things that he still wants to do, about the ones that he wants to do again. He wraps an arm around Eduardo’s waist and closes his eyes. 

_We’re going to do things right for once. Don’t go._


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

At first it’s hard.

Mark’s not an idiot. He knows that sex doesn’t make everything okay. It’s not going to make the last few years magically vanish, as if they were a terrible nightmare from which he suddenly awakens, relieved that that wasn’t his life. But the years without speaking, the betrayal and the lawsuit – and yes, he can recognize it now: the broken heart – are all things that happened. A reality written in ink.

No more than two hours pass, after that first night, when Mark wakes up, cold, sticky and filthy, and he panics. Simple as that. He covers Eduardo with a blanket and goes and hides in the bathroom. He spends half an hour in the shower, in the warm water, thinking that he’ll already have left. He wraps a towel around his waist and sits on the edge of the bathtub, a pool of water under his feet. Mark has to fix this, he has to use words, and he doesn’t know which ones, or how. For the first time in a long time the ideas aren’t taking shape in his mind. 

And maybe last night was the last time. 

There’s an insistent knock on the door. Then it opens and Eduardo appears, with the blanket over his shoulders, feet bare and his hair going in every possible direction.

“Mark,” he says, soft and faltering. “Mark.”

He comes over to Mark and takes him by the wrist. Makes him stand up and come out of the bathroom, into the bedroom, steers him toward the bed. He pulls back the comforter and makes him lie down with the simple gesture of his hands on Mark’s shoulders. It’s something familiar, a memory from years ago, when Eduardo used to talk and smile like he thought that Mark was incorrigible but adorable. Mark lies on his side and shuts his eyes. A few seconds later he feels the mattress sink a little under Eduardo’s weight, hears him breathing.

“I’m not going to leave. At least for now,” Eduardo says, voice very low.

Mark crushes the pillow between his hands, squeezing it until the desire to touch him has passed. He sleeps with Eduardo’s foot touching his ankle.

In the end the words come out. They form sentences, and Mark thinks _I can say them_ and _I’m not scared_. He says _I’m sorry_ , over and over again, for each one of the mistakes he made, for not doing things differently, for not attempting to hurt him less. Eduardo remains silent, the moment closing in on them, excruciating. Finally he says:

“I hadn’t realized until that day that I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to strangle you and kiss you at the same time.”

Mark reaches out a hand, ventures to touch him, curling shaky fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

“It’s stupid, isn’t it?” Eduardo says, in that soft tone that heightens his accent. “That at the exact moment when your best friend breaks your heart, you’re thinking that you could have kissed him –” He closes his eyes and says, even lower: “I used to ask myself what would’ve happened if I’d realized before, when we still understood each other – if I’d kissed you then. I wondered if we would’ve managed to not fuck everything up so badly.”

Mark wants to say something, maybe _I realized too, only way later._ It was lucky, way too fucking lucky, and Mark doesn’t want to think about what would have happened if he’d never overheard that conversation in the men’s room.

At first they tiptoe around this new way of relating to one another that’s still a little like it was back then, but that doesn’t keep it from being scarily new and different. And intimate in a way that Mark sometimes feels is too much and at the same time not enough.

It’s not perfect, because Mark is Mark and Eduardo is Eduardo, and they’re still their own basic selves. More mature, more grown-up and experienced, but still fundamentally themselves. And having tons of sex – or even acknowledging all the mistakes they made in the past and asking for forgiveness, over and over again - doesn’t make everything all right. They have to learn how to move around each other, to improve on the pattern they already had and replace all the parts that made them fail. 

At first they keep it a secret.

Mark hates the idea of telling Chris and Dustin. Eduardo has another reason, better and more noble.

“It took me a month to say a word to Chris and when I did it wasn’t a nice one. He was still working for you and I thought that that wasn’t fair, that Chris didn’t deserve to stay on at Facebook with you and be my friend at the same time.” Mark takes a swig of his beer and moves his right foot until the water of the pool reaches his ankle, swirls it around, making waves. “One day I got drunk and I told him that he had to choose, that he couldn’t be both things, and I yelled at him. I threw a book and a pair of shoes at his head and” – he sighs – “then I realized how selfish I’d been, what a prick I was being. It’d be stupid to leave Chris to you too.”

“If you’d asked Chris he might have disagreed,” Mark jokes. 

Eduardo tenses beside him, briefly, but enough for Mark to notice it. He rests his arm against Eduardo’s for a moment, feeling his goosebumped skin, a little cold on a too-warm night.

“Sorry,” he mutters, not because it’s hard to say it but because suddenly he feels like Eduardo is much more fragile than he looks, and Mark wants to keep all the parts of him together - as if his voice could shiver the cracks and break him.

“It’s a good thing Dustin stayed with you, because it would have been harder to pretend that I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. The number of ridiculous emails he sent me – I have a folder for all of them.” He smiles. “They were my friends too and I wanted them to choose, and while Chris refused to do it, I was convinced that Dustin had chosen you because he’d stayed in Palo Alto – but he just kept trying like hell.”

Mark looks at him and for the first time he realizes all the damage he did, more than he had thought; realizes how he’d shaken Eduardo’s world. Mark had lost Eduardo, but Eduardo had lost more. He remembers _My father won’t even look at me_ and abruptly he catches hold of Eduardo’s neck, kisses the corner of his lips, then full on the mouth. When they pull apart Eduardo cocks his head and looks at Mark with cautious affection.

“I don’t want to tell them because if this doesn’t work out, if we do something monumentally stupid and it all goes to shit again, I don’t want to start all over again –” Eduardo runs a hand through his hair, further disheveling his bangs. “As long as Chris and Dustin don’t know anything, they won’t have to feel implicated in any way. It’s better if they just keep thinking that we’ve talked and worked things out and are learning to be friends again.”

“You think it’s not going to work out?” It sounds a lot more pissed off than he’d actually expected, though not that far from what he’s feeling right now, like they still don’t fully trust each other.

Eduardo takes his time answering, taking Mark’s non-beer-holding hand. His hand is damp with the pool water, warm against Mark’s palm.

“I want it to work, Mark.” He interlaces their fingers and squeezes; Mark focuses on their hands, on the contrast of tanned skin against his own. “But I’m not going to lie to you and say that at times, when I’m in New York and you’re here, I don’t have doubts. _God,_ I think, _I’m going to come back in a couple weeks and it’ll be over, he’s going to realize how stupid it is to want to be with me.”_

Mark wants to say _I think so much about being with you, about how much I want to be with you, that when I see you I can’t believe it’s real._ If Eduardo only knew that the first thing Mark thinks when they see each other again – that split second before Eduardo smiles in the way that lights up his eyes – is that Eduardo is going to punch him, that he hasn’t forgiven him, that he still hates him. That in reality the sex is part of a plan in which Mark ends up falling in love with him and in the end Eduardo leaves him thrown out like an old rag while he walks away with an evil laugh. 

“What I said to you years ago still stands,” he says, before he can overthink it.

Eduardo frowns.

“Which was?”

“Move to Palo Alto.” Mark thinks he’d beg if it were necessary, if Eduardo wanted him to, and he’s scared of how willing he is to do it. “Even I know that long-distance relationships eventually end up falling through.”

“Here? With you?” Eduardo’s looking at him as if waiting for Mark to say _Of course not, don’t be stupid._

Mark thinks of the moments that have changed his life, about the ideas that are born from something simple, about taking an idea and having a better idea and doing something that matters with it. About constantly changing the world, and about letting other things stay the same because it’s impossible to improve on perfection.

“Why not?” he asks.

A month later - before Dustin and Chris can show up at Mark’s house, find out that Eduardo has moved in and discover that they’re actually sharing a bed (and every surface on which it’s possible to have sex) - they tell them.

Chris throws a punch at Mark and aims another one at Eduardo, who is much faster and manages to dodge Chris’s furious blows.

“I’m leaving!” he proclaims. 

Which is a lie because deep down Mark knows – although he doesn’t want to think about it – that the day Chris leaves it’ll be to work for someone much better, something that’s a real challenge, and that is highly unlikely. It’s not that Mark thinks there’s no one better than him - his egotism isn’t _that_ boundless - but Chris needs something more than a good person to feel motivated, and that’s hard to find.

Dustin’s folding his arms, watching them with a seriousness that’s not like him.

“If you fuck it up again, I’ll kill you with my own hands. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”

Often, when he thinks that Mark’s asleep, Eduardo will murmur things to him – things he’ll say when he’s awake, but when he thinks that Mark can’t hear him, he repeats them. Things like _I’m sorry I didn’t come before,_ mostly, and _I’m going to stay._ And Mark pretends not to hear, pretends that the words don’t make their way in to cling hard to his heart and stay there, forever if that’s what Eduardo wants.

Mark comes into his house, shitloads of boxes everywhere, stuff that isn’t his and stuff that’s already part of his space, of his life. He goes up the wide staircase; there’s a new painting in the hallway that he doesn’t remember having bought. The first thing he sees upon entering the bedroom is a suitcase on the bed, carefully folded clothes and the closet open: Eduardo’s filling up the empty space that Mark’s always had in there. Mark leans against the doorframe and waits idly, watches without quite believing that this is his life now, with fear bubbling in the pit of his stomach. Eduardo comes out of the bathroom, a towel around his waist and another in his hands, drying his hair. Mark looks him up and down: his skin, the planes and curves of his muscles, the length of his back, the way his shoulderblades contract. 

Seriously, sometimes he has to pinch himself and remember that this is in fact his life.

Eduardo turns around and sees him, leaves the towel on the bed. 

“How long have you been standing there?” he asks.

“Long enough.”

Eduardo comes over to him and Mark kisses him, slowly, so as not to say something idiotic like that a bunch of boxes have never made him so happy. Eduardo pulls away with a lazy smile, and Mark takes the towel around his waist in his fingers, and drops it. He grips him by the hips and pushes until he has him trapped against the wall, kisses his collarbone, shoulder, neck, jaw. Eduardo tries to pry him off, placing his hands on his chest.

“Quit it,” he says, insisting. “Quit it, Mark. I _just_ showered.”

Mark rubs his nose against his neck, breathing in the clean scent of him. 

“On account of which you’re very clean.”

Eduardo shivers a little in his hands and Mark wants to do it – is scared sometimes of how much he wants it, all the time. It’s a perpetual itch, a need that he can’t control and doesn’t want to, anyway. He takes a moment to grab the suitcase and clothes and chuck it all onto the floor. 

“If you think you’re going to seduce me by making a mess, you don’t –”

Mark pushes him towards the now-empty bed and Eduardo lets out a cry; quickly Mark strips off his shirt and pants and kneels over him. He holds his wrists tightly and runs his tongue the whole distance from Eduardo’s stomach up to his mouth, all the way. He kisses him briefly and then looks at him with intent, grinding his crotch against Eduardo’s and smirking when Eduardo groans and starts to harden underneath him. Eduardo always ends up responding, always ends up giving in. The cotton of Mark’s underwear is all that separates them and Mark moves more, very slowly, pressing just right. 

Eduardo arches and the friction is unbearable.

“Still want to stop?” Mark asks, petulant.

Eduardo growls, moves his arms to escape from Mark, and flips them rapidly over. Mark finds himself on his back, then, Eduardo naked above him and watching him in that way where he seems to be thinking of where to start when he wants to be _everywhere_. He gets Mark’s underwear off in one yank and bends over him again. He kisses him, and when he pulls away Mark follows him upwards. Eduardo laughs, low and deep. He spits in one hand and slips it between them, grips their erections and slides up and down at the same time that he circles his hips. Mark grabs at the comforter, throws his head back.

“You’re impossible,” says Eduardo, breath hot against his neck.

He lets go of him after a few seconds (during which Mark was sure he was going to make a fool of himself by coming) and reaches into the nightstand drawer, where he knows that Mark keeps the lube and condoms. Mark takes the opportunity to turn over until he’s lying face-down. Eduardo strokes Mark’s back with his fingertips, makes him spread his legs a little wider. He settles himself between them, and then Mark feels the chill of a first finger opening him up, another one slipping in, circling them over and over again. Mark writhes, rubs himself against the comforter. Eduardo adds yet another finger and Mark moans.

“Don’t even think about coming,” Eduardo warns, digging his nails into Mark’s thigh.

Mark loses any concept of time, doesn’t know how long he holds out while Eduardo finger-fucks him. It seems like hours have passed when Eduardo pulls them abruptly out and gives him a slap on the ass.

“On your knees, baby.”

Mark looks back over his shoulder with a frown and Eduardo grins smugly as he puts the condom on. Eduardo almost never calls him anything other than ‘Mark’ – well, sometimes ‘dumbass’ or ‘asshole’, but in a way that leaves no doubt that he’s _Eduardo’s_ dumbass and asshole and nobody else has the right to call him that. And sometimes, rarely, he calls him ‘baby’. He either blurts it out in the heat of the moment or says it just to annoy Mark, and this time is one of the latter.

Mark obeys anyway, because he needs to come and Eduardo is grabbing onto his hips and he’s – there. Inside, agonizingly slow and hot. Mark arches on his knees, arms outstretched, and Eduardo leans his forehead against Mark’s back, sweating and scraping him with his teeth. He sets a rhythm, the one that always makes Mark plead things like _harder_ and _faster_. Abruptly he grips Mark’s chest with one hand and his waist with the other and forces him backwards without pulling out. Mark feels him inside, deeper when he settles himself onto Eduardo’s thighs.

“Fuck,” he groans.

Eduardo flexes his hand on Mark’s chest, right where his heart’s threatening to explode at any moment. Mark clutches Eduardo’s thighs, so hard it must hurt but Eduardo isn’t complaining. He rests his head on Eduardo’s shoulder, feels the sweat sliding between chest and back; feels Eduardo’s breathing, moist air against his ear and cheek. Mark turns his head and kisses him.

He stretches out an arm, grabbing Eduardo’s neck, yanking his hair.

“Already?” asks Eduardo, barely a murmur against his mouth.

He takes him in hand, gripping the base, and Mark twists Eduardo’s hair between his fingers. 

“Don’t be a dick, Wardo,” he growls.

Eduardo muffles a laugh, kisses his neck. He moves his hand while he keeps thrusting and Mark’s hips jerk, up and down. They fill the room with moans and whispers and the obscene sound of skin smacking and rubbing together.

Mark feels it when Eduardo comes, how his fingers press hard into Mark’s chest, the perfect white mark of five fingertips like a constellation on his skin – the bite to his shoulder and the change of rhythm in the hand that’s still gripping Mark’s cock – and he arches his back, crying out and feeling his orgasm like an electric current that shakes him from head to toe. 

He raises himself up with difficulty, a little sore, Eduardo gently helping to steady his hips. He lies back down in bed, cleans up a bit with what he’s sure is the sleeve of one of Eduardo’s shirts (he hides it under the bed). Eduardo gets rid of the condom and lies down beside him.

“Aren’t you glad I moved your clothes?” Mark asks.

Eduardo laughs, turns toward him and rests his head on Mark’s shoulder.

“You’re all bony,” he complains, but he doesn’t move away.

Mark feels the tickle of Eduardo’s lashes on his skin, his warm breath. Eduardo’s fingers rub lazily along his arm until he finds Mark’s hand and takes it, interlacing their fingers – not tightly, they’re just _there,_ reminding Mark that he’s not going anywhere. Or – he hopes that that’s what it means.

Eduardo rests his chin on Mark’s shoulder, craning his neck up to kiss him. He smiles against his lips and pulls away with his eyes still closed. A few minutes later he’s asleep at Mark’s side.

Mark wonders when it happened, at what exact moment. The moment when – not only did he not stop wanting all of this with Eduardo – he started loving Eduardo. 


	6. Chapter 6

**+1.**

Eduardo has a million dumb secrets, the kind of stuff that people are embarrassed to admit because someone’s always going to mock them for it. Mark finds it cute, which is another dumb secret that he’ll take to the grave.

Nobody but Mark knows that when Eduardo was thirteen he read _Little Women_ and cried (and that actually it’s hard to find a book that _doesn’t_ make him cry), or that for a good chunk of his adolescence he was convinced that if he were bitten by a spider he’d become a superhero (although Mark figures that that was less about helping others and more about wanting to save himself from the life he had back then) or that one of the reasons he liked _The Goonies_ so much is that he discovered that he liked boys too thanks to Josh Brolin. 

When the mom says, _“Don’t you come home without your brother, or I’ll commit Hare Krishna!”_ Eduardo laughs and responds at the same time as Josh Brolin’s character, Brand: _“That’s ‘hara-kiri,’ Ma.”_

He spends the rest of the movie paying attention, as if he’s seeing it for the first time in his life, not what’s probably the 524th. Mark is sitting at the other end of the couch, his computer forgotten on the floor and Eduardo’s thick-wool-sock-clad feet resting on his thighs. He’s wearing one of Mark’s old hoodies - one of the ones that Chris threatened to burn if he saw it again, and he didn’t care if Mark was wearing it _when_ he burned it - and pajama pants, hair messy and puffy in a way that makes him look years younger, nose and cheeks red and eyes slightly swollen from the flu. It’s frustrating – and kind of disgusting – how attractive Mark finds him even when he’s sick.

As the movie ends he stretches his arms and legs and Mark takes his ankle, a finger stroking the skin he discovers between sock and pants. They spend half an hour in silence (save for the occasional sneeze or coughing fit on Eduardo’s part) watching one of those BBC documentaries that always just confirm Mark’s dread for the future of humanity.

Eduardo shifts his feet in Mark’s lap, wiggling his toes and then pressing his right foot against Mark’s crotch. It would be an innocuous movement if it weren’t for the fact that he doesn’t stop it, rubbing and exerting pressure. Mark turns his head; Eduardo smiles innocently and raises an eyebrow. Mark grabs his ankle.

“Wardo,” he warns.

“Come on, Mark,” Eduardo says, voice still all nasal.

He sits up a bit and Mark can see that he’s half-hard.

“You’re sick.”

“I feel totally fine,” Eduardo replies, coughing at the end.

Mark laughs. “Seriously?”

Eduardo sits up all the way, feet apart, and slides his hand easily into his pants. He takes him firmly in hand and gives him a squeeze. Kisses him on the cheek, on the corner of his mouth.

“You’ve gone five days without kissing me,” he complains. 

“I don’t want to catch anything,” Mark replies.

“It’s been days and you don’t feel bad, right?” He skims the tip of his tongue over Mark’s lip and takes Mark’s hand, moves it closer to his erection. “See? I’m fine.”

Mark grunts. It’s been five days of jerking off in the shower and he’s in a bad mood. He turns all the way toward Eduardo and lets him kiss him, at first only on the lips, then with tongue. Eduardo tastes like saliva and cough syrup. He sneaks his hands up under Mark’s shirt, palms and fingers, stroking his chest, his ribs. 

“Bed,” Mark says. “I don’t want to buy another couch. I like this couch.”

After that first time Mark had to relegate that couch to the attic. When Eduardo found out, he asked him why he’d kept it there, why he hadn’t just thrown it out. Mark shrugged – he really didn’t know, not then. Eduardo had fucked him that afternoon on that same couch. Mark has very good memories of that couch, but he doesn’t need to change it once again. Eventually Dustin would find out why, and that’s one torture to which Mark’s not going to subject himself if he can help it.

Eduardo stands, offers a hand and Mark takes it. He drags him up to the bedroom. Eduardo gets naked in like a second and gets under the covers, draws them right up to his chin and watches with a ridiculously tender smile as Mark finishes divesting himself of his clothes. Mark pulls the covers away a bit and Eduardo spreads out his legs. He gets Mark sitting in between them and then covers them both with the comforter.

“This is not my idea of erotic asphyxiation,” Mark says. 

Eduardo laughs, places both of his hands on Mark’s neck and looks at him in such a way that Mark wonders if he’s developed a fever and is delirious and seeing a different person in Mark. He rests his forehead against Mark’s, rubs their noses together and then kisses him at last. So soft, slow, sweet.

“I missed you,” he whispers, mere millimeters from his mouth.

“I didn’t go anywhere.” But Mark wraps his arms around Eduardo’s waist, draws him close and gets Eduardo to smile, to understand that these last few days have been torture for him too. Eduardo lies back, pulls Mark down towards him and kisses him again. Mark rolls them onto their sides and Eduardo throws one leg over his hip. They spend a while like that, kissing and rubbing and touching each other as if they had all the time in the world. Eduardo is sweating, breathing harder. 

“I missed _this,”_ he says, and takes Mark’s cock in his hot fingers. 

He buries his head in the juncture of Mark’s neck and shoulder, kissing and licking the skin. Suddenly he sneezes.

“Are you kidding me,” Mark complains, pulling away a bit.

Eduardo bursts out laughing, cleaning him off with the comforter. “Sorry.” He kisses him on the shoulder. 

Mark’s too turned on right now to worry about a few germs and he has to admit that it’s ridiculously adorable how much effort Eduardo’s putting into this. The angle is awkward, but Eduardo’s making it work. He moves his hand, rubbing the head of Mark’s cock with his fingertips, and Mark shouldn’t have to spend even one day without this. 

“When I’m all better I’m going to fuck you. In your office,” Eduardo says, voice sending a tingle up Mark’s spine. “I’ve always wanted to do it on one of those glass tables.”

“Since when?” Mark asks, choked, and he holds on tight to Eduardo’s shoulders.

“Since the lawsuit,” comes his answer. “There were days when I could hardly think about anything besides fucking you in front of all of those lawyers.”

“Jesus, Wardo – ”

“There was this one day when I got so hard –” he twists his wrist, picking up the pace – “that I had to turn around so nobody would notice.”

Mark starts laughing, near-breathless. He looks at Eduardo, his blown pupils and bangs stuck to his forehead with sweat. He’s smiling. It’s a smile that Mark recognizes because sometimes he finds himself smiling the same way, private and satisfied. Eduardo brings his face in close and kisses him.

“Okay,” Mark says, when Eduardo pulls away.

“What?”

“I’ll let you fuck me in my office.”

Eduardo slips his tongue into Mark’s mouth, runs it over his palate and teeth; Mark spreads out his fingers on Eduardo’s neck, draws him in and kisses him passionately. When he comes his whole body shakes, groaning into Eduardo’s mouth, deep and relieved. He flops onto his back, gasping for breath. Beside him Eduardo raises a hand to his mouth, licking his fingers and palm, and Mark has never in his life seen anything so simultaneously nonchalant and filthy. A shudder runs through his body and he surges over Eduardo, kisses him and feels him against his thigh, still hard and hot. He bites his way down Eduardo’s chest, sucking his nipples, scratching gently at his sides. Eduardo writhes, drenched in sweat and Mark’s spit.

“Mark,” he moans. “Unless I’m _dying_ next time, this is the last time we don’t do anything, got it?” 

Mark raises his head, rests his chin on Eduardo’s belly. Eduardo coughs and his entire body shudders. Mark waits until it passes.

“You’re not allowed to get sick again.”

Eduardo laughs, but it turns abruptly into a sigh when Mark licks his cockhead and takes him in one hand.

“And if it’s you who gets sick?” he asks, arching.

“I don’t get sick, Wardo.”

He smirks and Eduardo tosses his head back, knowing what’s coming. It’s his favorite part. Mark sucks, until he feels it in his throat, until it throbs heavy against his tongue, and Eduardo groans loud, low and desperate. He slides up and down, moving his tongue and pinning Eduardo’s hips to the bed.

“Oh God,” Eduardo breathes. _“Fuck.”_

He comes in Mark’s mouth, and Mark sucks and swallows until Eduardo is a mass of tired muscles under his hands. Mark turns him onto his side and covers them with the comforter.

“I know I’m still a little doped up on meds, and you just gave me an orgasm, and if you say it after sex it doesn’t count,” says Eduardo, “but I love you.”

Mark blinks and looks at him, and for the first time in a long time he believes that this is his life. As unbelievable as it may be, as impossible as it may seem, this is his life and Eduardo is in it.

“If it doesn’t count after sex: I love you, too.”

“Asshole,” Eduardo mutters, stroking Mark’s neck with his fingers.

Mark wraps one arm around his waist, his hand on his back, and runs a finger down Eduardo’s spine. Eduardo shivers and curls into Mark’s side. 

This moment, this closeness under the covers, in a world that Mark couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams: it’s becoming everything he wants.


End file.
